Steffy: A sign of reason amid the protest jumble

Updated 8:30 pm, Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Loren Steffy : Chronicle
SAVING THE SYSTEM?: Christopher Keeble says capitalism has been hijacked. "We need to stand up against a system that has been corrupted."

Loren Steffy : Chronicle
SAVING THE SYSTEM?: Christopher Keeble says capitalism has been hijacked. "We need to stand up against a system that has been corrupted."

Photo: Loren Steffy

Steffy: A sign of reason amid the protest jumble

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As the Occupy Houston protest began to assemble in front of City Hall last week, I spotted Christopher Keeble from the other side of the plaza.

I'll admit, I don't have much patience for these sorts of protests, but something about Keeble caught my attention. Maybe it was his tie. Maybe it was the sign he held aloft professing his love for capitalism.

"Capitalism isn't the problem," he told me after I approached him. "Capitalism is being destroyed from within."

Keeble, who said he works in sales, wasn't some counter-protester amid a throng of socialists. In fact, he said part of the reason he showed up was because "this is being perceived as a liberal gathering," and he thinks the problem the Occupy movement is spotlighting run deeper than politics.

Despite the street theater and signs like "Recycle the Rich," there is an outrage manifested in the gathering that is more mainstream.

Keeble said he's angry that capitalism has been hijacked by corporate interests that are undermining the system they purport to uphold.

"The playing field is not level anymore," he said. "We need to stand up against a system that has been corrupted."

That's the theme that resonates from the stories on the "We are the 99 Percent" website that's affiliated with the group, which gives a voice to the everyday victims of the recession and the moribund recovery.

It reflects a larger, broader unrest, one in which Americans question why the recovery has benefited a few - the wealthiest 1 percent - while ignoring so many others who have worked so hard yet have so little show for it.

Reasons to wonder

They wonder why if they go to college, get degrees and shoulder thousands of dollars in debt, they still find themselves in the unemployment line.

In other words, they wonder why, if they do their part, the system no longer works the way it was supposed to.

They wonder why investment banks accept billions in taxpayer-funded welfare to stay in business, then show their gratitude with higher debit cards fees and other abusive practices. They wonder how the big banks can whine about increased regulation as if almost destroying the global economy was akin to a botched play in backyard football and they deserve a do-over.

They wonder how Wall Street, the supposed engine of capitalism, has become an institution that exists with implicit government support. It privatizes its profits, but when it stumbles, it expects the public to cover its losses.

The point, as Keeble sees it, isn't to subvert capitalism, but to save it from those who have tried to pervert it.

Little interest in repairs

The system is broken, and no one in Washington has shown much interest in fixing it. They retread the same tired arguments that either caused the problem or failed to solve it.

We don't need to end capitalism, we need to root out the influences that have corrupted it.

If the government won't hold the architects of the financial crisis to account, then "this needs to be addressed in the streets," Keeble said.

We have to save capital- ism from the crony capital-ists, as he calls them.

On the back of sign, Keeble called for revamping the tax code by ending loopholes and "tax-break largesse," reforming Wall Street regulations and campaign finance, simplifying corporate compliance and toughing enforcement of existing rules.

That doesn't sound like a radical manifesto. It sounds like a good place to start.